EDITORIAL: Russia and its Bandits

Our hearts skipped a beat last week last week when we read reports indicating that Russian “president” Dima Medvedev had declared his intention to “eliminate the bandits” who were plaguing his country.

At last, we thought! Finally Russia’s so-called leader has seen the light and is going to arrest proud KGB spy Vladimir Putin and his gang of thugs who have been robbing the nation blind for years. And that’s to say nothing of the murders.

After all, as brilliant reporting from the Washington Post which we republish in today’s issue makes clear, Putin has been engaged in a relentless campaign of torture and political murder in the Caucasus region for years, a campaign which has included the slaughter of Russian patriots like Politkovskaya, Estemirova and Markelov.

But our hopes were soon shattered. It seems the “bandits” Medvedev was referring to were the rebels wrecking havoc across the Caucasus with daily murders of Russian government officials and military personnel.

What’s that, you say? You thought Vladimir Putin had already wiped out all of those bandits (“stomped them in the toilet,” to use his colorful phrase) long ago? Why, you ask, is it necessary for Medvedev to repeat, almost verbatim, the same rhetoric invoked by Putin years ago when Putin’s stratospheric popularity among Russians is purported based on victory in Caucasus, thus obviating the need for any such rhetoric?

Welcome to Russia. Not only is Medvedev not arresting the “bandits” who are doing the real harm to Russia from the Kremlin, he’s pontificating in an absurd manner about being able to control the relatively insignificant “bandits” in the Caucasus region who are well beyond his grasp, just as they were beyond Putin’s grasp.

That the Kremlin still believes the population of Russia is moronic enough to allow its attention to be distracted by this ludicrous banter about “bandits” only goes to prove how very little respect for them their own government has.

Putin’s chief claim to fame was his alleged quelling of revolt in the Caucasus region. Instead, the region is once again in flames, and Russia has even been at war with neighboring Georgia. Hardly peace in our time. Meanwhile, Putin and his cronies filch billions from the national treasure to line their own pockets and prosecute and insane new round of cold war with the West.

The number of police killed in a suicide bomb attack in Russia’s North Caucasus Republic of Dagestan has risen to seven, after a police officer died from blood loss, Russian TV channel NTV reported on Wednesday.

Surgeons are now struggling to save the lives of 15 police officers wounded in the deadly bomb attack, NTV said.

Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya, all predominantly Muslim republics in the North Caucasus, saw a sharp rise in violence last year, with many of the nearly daily attacks targeting police and other officials.

The violence sweeping the impoverished southern region is increasingly being described as a civil war between Kremlin-supported administrations and Islamic militants. Widespread abuses against civilians by police, including abductions, torture and killings, have helped to swell the ranks of the militants.

Suicide bombings, once rare, are occurring with growing frequency.

[But our hopes were soon shattered. It seems the “bandits” Medvedev was referring to were the rebels wrecking havoc across the Caucasus with daily murders of Russian government officials and military personnel.]

The Islamic militants, who murder policemen by the dozens, are not “bandits”? How about the Nigerian boy, who was caught with a bomb up his crotch?

Compared to the Russian police, army, and FSB/OMON “Specials” who rape, kidnap, murder and torture thousands upon thousands of north and south Caucasians, conduct ethnic cleansing in neighboring Georgia etc, the “Bandits” are definitely not so bad.

At least they generally attack military and government targets, unlike the cowards of the Russian Federal Security services who tend to prefer raping teenage girls, kidnapping innocent civillians and torturing them to death, and randomly executing passers by.

(It’s unclear if he was stripped of this after the murder conviction. I think not.)

But his subordinate who testifued that it was him who raped the corpse while burying the victim, so Budanov would be tried only for murder, was immediately amnestied and then received the medal “For Service of the Motherland”.

Like if the other two who were just burying her to make her “disappear” like the thousands of others, and were not charged of anything, were not desacrating her body or anything else (I almost wrote “their uniforms”, but there was nothing sacred there in the first place).

The Russian police (aka “Militia”) is in general by far the biggest and most feared organized crime/terrorist group in this country, responsible for millions of serious crimes such as acts of murders (thousands of them), kidnappings (ditto), acts of torture (it’s a common, routine practice), violent extortion/robbery, assault, etc. in less than 20 years. (That’s not even counting the minor stuff like receiving and demanding bribes.)

According to a nationwide survey published this month by the Levada Center in Moscow, 71 percent of respondents said they didn’t trust the police at all while 2 percent thought the police act within the law. That number approaches zero when people working in law enforcement and their families are factored out of those likely to have been surveyed.

In a separate poll this month by the Public Opinion Foundation, 41 percent of Russian respondents said they lived in fear of police violence.

“The violations are so gross and the problem is so deeply penetrated that it’s going to take years to correct,” said Vladimir Lukin, Russia’s ombudsman and a former ambassador to the United States.

Police brutality extends well beyond the breakaway republic of Chechnya, where widespread human rights violations have been documented in 10 years of armed conflict.
(…)
“The prevalence of abuse suggests that roughly 6.2 million Russian adults are victimized by police violence in a two-three year window,” Theodore P. Gerber of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Sarah E. Mendelson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington wrote in a draft paper scheduled for publication this fall. “These numbers are in fact quite staggering and imply that police abuse is indeed widespread, even commonplace, in contemporary Russia.”

These days they much more often kill the police and state security (and public insecurity) than soldiers.

When they kill the soldiers, it’s usually the servicemen of the Internal Troops, which is the army of the MVD so they’re basically heavily armed conscript paramilary police (or something, the whole concept is pretty unique).

Litvinenko served in the Internal Troops’ Dzherzinsky Division before he joined the KGB.

Btw, the FSB also has its own army, and I don’t mean just their Osnaz special forces but also the hundeds of thousands-strong and also conscript-based Border Guards.

Russia has bloody mess in Kavkaz (Chechnia and other republics). It becomes worse. Proud people live there (Chechnia, Ingushetia, Dagestan, etc.) they no longer need Russian empire. Moscow tries to play by 19 century “Russian empire style” rules but it does not work. They can’t even replicate 19th century tactics cause they are “Chekists” – stupid and corrupt, rotten worst of the worst KGB guys.

In 2008 there was an accident at Nuclear power station near St Petersburg (yes there is Nuclear station in about 40 km from St Petersburh city centre). This station is in the same model as Chernobil station by the way. There was panic in St Petersburg. People bought all anticeptics in aptecas, etc. etc. There was media blackout of this accident in Russia and it’ still not widely known, even worldwide. Well, don’t worry yet, it looks like there was not major accident there.

But I want to draw your attention to the fact that when I googled this accident, one of the first and best informed websites which showed me detailed report of this situation was the website of Chechen separatists “www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/” (terrorists, freedom fighters – you choose). Now I think what a terrible future awaits Russia with all this mess in Kavkaz, with so many people who hate Russia and with all those Russian nuclear facilites built by stupid Soviet planners.

What do you think about it? Can La Russophobe write more about it? Thanks in advance!

[Those who speak Russian, please see this statistics. If someone can translate it and publish, it would be great. It’s amazing!]

And the most amazing fact about it is that a lot of this is pure garbage. Like the claim that cigarettes in Russia cost 30 cents. Or the lie about the alcohol consumption. Here is the actual statistics:

About half of the vodka consumed by the Russians is home-made or therwise unregistered. You can’t say this about Luxembourg.

(And what else about it? This: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8436863.stm Homemade vodka in Russia is highly dangerous and contributes heavily to the country’s 35000 deaths a year from alcohol poisoning.)

About one in five Russians is a Muslim (more than 20 million, 40% increase since 1989 while the total population is dropping rapidly) and they usually don’t drink alcohol at all (unlike in Bosnia). You can’t say this about Luxembourg, too.

But you can bet any official statistical data of Luxembourg by the government of Luxembourg is not a lie to make Mother Luxembourg look better while Mother Luxembourg is “rising from its knees” as the “global oasis of stability”, despite all the Evil Western Cospiracies to destroy Mother Luxembourg.

Gunvor, the world’s fourth largest oil trader, on Wednesday said its profits rose “significantly” last year from 2008 on the back of surging trade volumes. “2009 was a very good year for the company,” the trader said.

The publicity-shy private company, which handles about a third of Russia’s seaborne oil exports, did not provide further details on earnings or margins, but said its total traded oil volumes were up 10 per cent to 2.3m barrels a day…

By the way, regarding cigarette consuption. While the most expencive “luxury” cigarette brand cost in Russia about 1.5 dollars, the vast majority of population 95% consume cigarettes for about 30 cents. Even in Moscow. I am not talking about residents of Kremlin area. But majority consume very cheap products in the price range of 30-60 cents. It is also known that Russian government specifically helps the cheapest cigarettes to remain cheap to avoid Russians getting angry. For working class Russians who are majority the main worry is the prices of Vodka and the price of cigarettes.

Look also at other statistics there. It is shown there, for example, that 75 million Russians are pensioners or will become pensioners very soon. Then, if we remove also all people who work for enforcement agencies, government ministires, etc. there is only 30 million left who can theoretically do something (for professionals, businessmen, etc.). But there are also children, disabled, etc. among those 30 mil. That explains why Russian GDP is about the same as GDP of Los Angelese.

Now, all those 101 mil. people depend directly on the price of oil (gas price calculated from the price of oil as well with the lag of several months).

US plans to regulate oil futures to avoid over-inflation of oil price. Also all world goes to alternative energy resources, etc. Oil inventories are historically high.

What will happen with Russian state when oil dips. And it may well stay at low level for many years in new economic reality. What will happen?

Putin has a problem!!! For years his out of control security forces have been dragging innocent men and women out of their homes and executing them, these thugs use the excuse of “they were terrorists who attacked us first”,

This has occurred on a regular basis in the caucuses, The Republics of Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya. Because foreign NGO’s and press are largely excluded; a mist of disinformation has shrouded the region. plus the fact that the so called Presidents of these republics are unelected “cherry picked” Kremlin goons who have sold their soul for Putin’s rouble, and are happy to sit back and watch “their” people’s human rights trampled on. The repugnant Putin used the tragedy of Beslan to end the democratic right of the citizens in these republics to elect their own president, how reprehensible to use such a tragedy to impose a dictatorship, but a creature like Putin will always use any opportunity to consolidate his totalitarian state.

Back to Putin’s problem.Mudering citizens in the caucuses seems to be palatable for most Russian citizens. But now Putin’s crazy police have turned on the citizens of Moscow, we have witnessed a booze fuelled lunatic shooting to death staff and customers in supermarket, off duty Police drawing their weapons during a minor argument in a restaurant, a snow plough driver shot dead for bumping into a police car, and even a police officer shooting dead two other police officers who pulled him over for speeding, and so on and so on. Maybe they should rename Moscow “Dodge city”.

So why is this police anarchy happening, well we all know about the low pay, alcoholism, corruption. But there is also a more fundamental reason. During soviet times all police officers were given a full psychological evaluation, this weeded out a reported one third of all applicants, this process was dropped after the fall of the soviet union and replaced with the now traditional “nod and a wink” system of employment. So now unfortunately the poor beleaguered citizens of Russia have a police force where one third (based on the soviet criteria) are psychologically unstable. Or in common language “raving bloody lunatics”

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